Alyssa Croft

An Underexamined Inequality Cultural and Psychological Barriers to Men’s Engagement With Communal Roles

Social psychological research has sought to understand and mitigate the psychological barriers that block women’s interest, performance, and advancement in male-dominated, agentic roles (e.g., science, technology, engineering, and math). Research has not, however, correspondingly examined men’s underrepresentation in communal roles, traditionally occupied by women (e.g., careers in health care, early childhood education, and domestic roles including child care). In this article, we seek to provide a roadmap for research on this underexamined inequality by (a) outlining the benefits of increasing men’s representation in communal roles; (b) reviewing cultural, evolutionary, and historical perspectives on the asymmetry in status assigned to men’s and women’s roles; and (c) articulating the role of gender stereotypes in creating social and psychological barriers to men’s interest and inclusion in communal roles. We argue that promoting equal opportunities for both women and men requires a better understanding of the psychological barriers to men’s involvement in communal roles.

The Second Shift Reflected in the Second Generation Do Parents’ Gender Roles at Home Predict Children’s Aspirations?

Gender inequality at home continues to constrain gender equality at work. How do the gender disparities in domestic labor that children observe between their parents predict those children’s visions for their future roles? The present research examined how parents’ behaviors and implicit associations concerning domestic roles, over and above their explicit beliefs, predict their children’s future aspirations. Data from 326 children aged 7 to 13 years revealed that mothers’ explicit beliefs about domestic gender roles predicted the beliefs held by their children. In addition, when fathers enacted or espoused a more egalitarian distribution of household labor, their daughters in particular expressed a greater interest in working outside the home and having a less stereotypical occupation. Fathers’ implicit gender-role associations also uniquely predicted daughters’ (but not sons’) occupational preferences. These findings suggest that a more balanced division of household labor between parents might promote greater workforce equality in future generations.

Stereotype threat in intergroup relations.

In 1994, a controversial book hit newsstands. Its claim was that the consistent gap in intelligent quotient (IQ) scores between Black and White students was the result of genetic differences between the races. This proposition that one class of people is intellectually inferior to another was not a new claim. In the 1800s, Sir Francis Galton was one of the early psychologists to study intelligence and held the hypothesis that members of the British upper crust were, by birth, intellectually superior to those on lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. In the early 20th century, racial differences in scores on intelligence tests were used to support efforts to restrict immigration from certain regions of the world. But the civil rights movement of the 1960s marked a growing emphasis on ensuring equal opportunity, which called into question these earlier notions of racial differences in intelligence. When Herrnstein and Murray published The Bell Curve in 1994, their hypothesis that race differences in test scores could be traced to genetic factors was reminiscent of what many hoped was a bygone era. At the same time that The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994) was raising a firestorm of controversy, two scientists at Stanford University were carrying out research that would yield empirical support for a very different explanation of the race gap in intellectual performance. Those two researchers, Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, published their work in 1995 showing that performance differences between groups are more about culture than genetics. Their ground-breaking theory claimed that the mere knowledge that one might be targeted by negative stereotypes (negative beliefs and expectations about one’s group) can create a psychological burden that prevents ethnic minority students from performing up to their potential on tests of intellectual ability. They called this phenomenon stereotype threat. Steele and Aronson further argued that it is the situation itself that brings these stereotypes to mind. By extension, if the situation can be altered to remove anything that could cue racial stereotypes, the racial gap on achievement tests should be reduced. Steele and Aronson (1995) tested this hypothesis with a now-classic set of experiments. When a series of verbal problems was described as a diagnostic test of intelligence, African American college students underperformed relative to their European American counterparts, consistent with the often-observed gap in performance on achievement tests. But when the other half of the sample completed the same problems described only as a laboratory exercise, African American students performed as well as their White peers after controlling for prior test scores (Steele & Aronson, 1995). In another study, simply having Black students indicate their race on a demographic sheet before beginning a test was enough to produce lower scores than when race was not salient (see Figure 17.1). Although these initial studies offered no conclusive evidence of the psychological processes underlying this performance

A Peek Inside the Targets' Toolbox: How Stigmatized Targets Deflect Discrimination by Invoking a Common Identity

In an effort to identify effective strategies for reducing prejudice, this research tested whether stigmatized individuals can evoke a common identity to deflect discrimination. In an initial survey, gay/lesbian/bisexual participants reported a preference for evoking common identity in intergroup interactions. In two experiments, straight male perceivers in a managerial role-playing paradigm were more likely to select a gay man for an interview if he had primed a common identity. Evoking a common identity did not similarly benefit straight candidates. Findings suggest that integrating prejudice reduction and persuasion research can identify strategies that empower targets to effectively cope with prejudice.

Implicit and explicit emotional reactions to witnessing prejudice

The present study examined how individual differences in motivation to respond without prejudice predict self-reported negative affect and physiological responses to the prejudicial acts of others. One hundred and one White participants were paired with a Black “partner” and together they watched two White men on film having either a pro- or antidiversity discussion. The higher participants were on internal motivation to respond without prejudice, the greater their self-reported negative affect and the more they exhibited distress-related physiological responses during the antidiversity discussion. In contrast, during the prodiversity discussion participants lower in internal motivation to respond without prejudice showed greater physiological distress, but did not self-report more negative affect. These results suggest that only those who have internalized egalitarian goals exhibit the negative emotional responses likely to promote opposition to expressions of intergroup bias; those who lack these goals might instead react against efforts to promote diversity.

From Tribulations to Appreciation Experiencing Adversity in the Past Predicts Greater Savoring in the Present

Can experiencing adversity enhance people’s appreciation for life’s small pleasures? To examine this question, we asked nearly 15,000 adults to complete a vignette-based measure of savoring. In addition, we presented participants with a checklist of adverse events (e.g., divorce, death of a loved one) and asked them to indicate whether they had experienced any of these events and, if so, to specify whether they felt they had emotionally dealt with the negative event or were still struggling with it. Although people who were currently struggling with adversity reported a diminished proclivity for savoring positive events, individuals who had dealt with more adversity in the past reported an elevated capacity for savoring. Thus, the worst experiences in life may come with an eventual upside, by promoting the ability to appreciate life’s small pleasures.

Why Can’t I Just Be Myself? A Social Cognitive Analysis of the Working Self-Concept Under Stereotype Threat

We examined the hypothesis that stereotype threat disrupts reflexive cuing of the default self-concept and instead evokes a more reflective process of self-definition. Across two studies, a reaction time measure of math schematicity assessed prior to a math test was predicted by baseline math schematicity among men (Study 1) and women in a nonthreatening condition (Study 2). However, among women under stereotype threat, math schematicity measured prior to a diagnostic math test was unrelated to baseline math schematicity and was instead associated with explicit endorsement of math. These effects occurred for math and not language self-schemas, suggesting that under threat, the working self-concept might be derived from conscious reflection rather than automatic activation.